news reached him of the defeat and death of Hotspur on 21 July at Shrewsbury, and after proceeding to Cocklaws and formally relieving the garrison by proclaiming the death of Hotspur, he returned without entering England, and disbanded his forces (Fordun, ii. 435–6). The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolf having after the death of Hotspur obtained refuge in Scotland, Albany has been accused of having entered into an arrangement to deliver them up in order to procure the liberty of his son Murdac and other Scottish captives in England; but it would appear that they returned to England at the king of England's invitation (Wyntoun, bk. ix. chap. xviii. lines 135 &c.; Fordun, ii. 441). Shortly afterwards the young Prince James was captured off Flamborough Head on his way to France, and, being brought to London, was sent by Henry to the Tower. His capture and detention broke down the enfeebled health of the king, who died on 4 April 1406. At a meeting of the estates held shortly afterwards at Perth the captive James was declared to be their lawful king, and Albany was chosen regent of the kingdom.
The regency of Albany, possibly on the ground that the king was in the hands of Henry, a hostile monarch, assumed an entirely independent character. Charters ran in his name and were dated in the year of his regency, and in a letter to Henry IV he calls himself governor Dei Gratia (Burnet, Preface to Exchequer Rolls, iv. p. xlviii). It has been usual to assert that Albany connived at the captivity of the young Scottish king, but there is no evidence of this; nor if there were is there any reason to suppose that his connivance or non-connivance had much effect on the resolution of Henry, whose main aim in detaining the young king seems to have been to bring him under the domination of English influence. What is certain is that Albany—at least formally—sent different embassies to England to negotiate both for the deliverance of the king and his own son Murdoch (Rymer, passim), and that until 1415, when his son was exchanged for Hotspur's son, Henry Percy (afterwards second Earl of Northumberland), they were all equally unsuccessful.
The earlier years of Albany's regency were uneventful, the main occurrence being the burning of the English reformer Reseby at Perth in 1407. The university of St. Andrews was founded in 1410, and the following year was notable for the rebellion of Donald, lord of the Isles [see under Macdonald, Donald, second Lord of the Isles and ninth Earl of Ross], who, claiming the earldom of Ross in opposition to Albany, to whom the government of the earldom had been granted by his granddaughter Euphemia of Ross on her entering a nunnery, formed an alliance with Henry IV of England, and invaded the earldom with a force of ten thousand men, but was defeated by Alexander Stewart, earl of Mar [q. v.], nephew of the regent, at the famous battle of Harlaw on 24 July. Following up this success, Albany, having collected a strong force, marched into the earldom of Ross, and, after seizing the castle of Dingwall, compelled Donald to retreat to the Isles. The contention was renewed in the following summer, but Donald found it necessary to give in his submission; and Albany, with a view to consolidating the influence of the government in the north, caused the castle of Inverness to be erected under Mar's direction.
After the release of his son Murdac by Henry V in 1415, Albany in 1416 sent his second son, John, earl of Buchan, on a special embassy to England with the avowed aim of securing the release of the king, but the negotiations were without result. The sincerity of Albany has been called in question, but mainly on the ground that he could not possibly desire to put an end to his own regency. There is no evidence available for either his exculpation or his inculpation; but it is perhaps worth noting that all the while he was protecting the impostor, Thomas Warde, as the exiled Richard II, and that on Warde's death in 1419 he caused to be inscribed on his tomb in the church of the Dominican friars, Stirling, ‘Angliæ Ricardus jacet hic Rex ipse sepultus.’
In 1417 Albany sought to take advantage of the absence of Henry V in France to recapture Roxburgh, but news reaching him of the approach of the Duke of Bedford, he immediately abandoned the siege and retreated northwards. In this he only manifested that ‘discretion which is the better part of valour;’ but, on account of its inglorious result, the expedition obtained from the people the name of the foul (i.e. fool or foolish) raid (Fordun, ii. 449). Shortly after Albany's retirement the English entered Scotland by the eastern marches, and ravaged the country, burning many towns and villages. Albany took his revenge by sending in 1419 a force of seven thousand picked troops under the Earl of Buchan to the aid of the French against the English. Albany died at Stirling Castle in 1420. The date given by Bowyer is 3 Sept. 1419, but Albany granted a charter
